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11 April 2019 New York USA - The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) delivered its annual “Elections to UN Organs: Workshop for Election Officers”. With sponsorship of the Swedish contribution under the programme “Levelling the Playing Field”, the day-long workshop consisted of five seminars. It included UN staff and elections officers from Least Development Countries (LDCs), Middle Income Countries (MICs) as well as Developed Countries with the aim to help delegates understand the processes and procedures of various United Nations organs. The workshop kicked off with opening remarks by Mr. Marco A. Suazo, Head of UNITAR New York Office reminding the delegates how important this type of workshop is for the UN community. The first seminar was conducted by Mr. Kenji Nakano, Chief, General Assembly Affairs Branch who gave the attendees an overview of the UN organs as well as elections conducted by the General Assembly. This was followed by an in-depth session led by Ms. Tomoko Iwata, Legal Officer, Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) and Ms. Jori Joergensen, ECOSOC Affairs Branch. As a team, they presented the key elements of the rules and procedures for elections and voting as well as comparing the different electoral principles.
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The delegates were also given an overview of the eDelegate Portal “CandiWeb” by Ms. Mary Muturi of the General Assembly Affairs Branch to help trace the formal submission process for candidacies. Ms. Muturi also presented the different types of ballots to help the delegates understand the election process, followed by the tellers after the voting process. Ms. Muturi passed sample ballots around for the delegates to examine.
Mr. Nenad Vasic, Human Rights Officer of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ran the third session to discuss the role of treaty body members and their relationship with States parties. The delegates were also given an overview of candidate registration to bodies, the status of human rights treaty bodies and how treaty body members are chosen.
The fourth session was led by Ms. Blanca Montejo and Mr. Davey McNab, Representatives of (SCAD) of DPA to explain the machinery of the Security Council and their committees. The delegates were given material on the Security Council that outlined their missions, programme of work and their annual report.
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The fifth and last session was an interactive portion of the workshop. It was presented by four members who ran successful campaigns for their own elections. The presenters were Ms. Lachezara Stoianova Stoeva of the Permanent Mission of Bulgaria, Mr. Lyle Davidson of the Permanent Mission of South Africa, Ms. Sarah Husseini of the Permanent Mission of Saudi Arabia and Ms. Erma Rheindrayani of the Permanent Mission of Indonesia. Both Ms. Stoeva and Mr. Davidson gave helpful advice on planning and preparing campaigns prior to and during elections. Ms. Husseini and Ms. Rheindrayani assessed the trade-offs and risks of engaging in campaigns as well as the need to communicate campaign goals and progress to country capitals. The team also fielded many questions from the participants. All of the presenters stressed the importance of genuinely networking with each other in order to build positive relationships and have successful campaigns.
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